Bowers & Wilkins Formation Wedge Speaker Review

The Bowers & Wilkins Formation Wedge is a unique-looking home speaker that's designed to stand out. It has an elliptical shape, similar to the Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin 2021, and it's wrapped in fabric. On top, there's a glass panel with LED touch control lights.

Since this is a wired-only speaker, it isn't very portable. It's also rather large and heavy, so you can't carry it in one hand.

This speaker has a solid and premium feel overall. It's wrapped in mesh fabric with a faceted pattern, but it doesn't feel as tight as the fabric that comes with the Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin 2021. The fabric seems like it could rip if you aren't careful when carrying it. Similar to other home speakers, it isn't rated for dust or water resistance, so it's not meant for use near water.

The controls are on top of the speaker. Overall, they're really easy to use, and you can adjust the volume or play/pause your audio with the touch of a button. They light up when you touch them, too, which makes it easy to see what you're doing in a dark room. However, other functionalities like skipping tracks can only be done through your paired device or the app, which isn't ideal if you don't want to use your phone.

• Bowers & Wilkins Formation Wedge
• Manuals
• Power cable

This speaker has decent frequency response accuracy. Overall, its sound profile is pretty even. As a result, it's suitable for listening to many different types of audio content. There's a little extra boom in the high-bass that adds some excitement to rumbling tracks like EDM and hip-hop, though the slight dip in the mid-mids can make voices slightly hollow or recessed at times. If you want a different sound, you can adjust the bass and treble in the companion app.

Its soundstage is great. This speaker can playback stereo content without downmixing it to mono, so sound effects like instruments are accurately localized to pinpoint locations in the soundstage. For example, if you're meant to hear a guitar on the right and a keyboard on the left, the speaker will reproduce each sound accordingly. It has good directivity, so the soundstage is perceived as spacious and open-sounding.

This speaker gets loud, so it has no trouble filling larger or more open spaces with sound. Some compression and pumping artifacts are present at max volume, especially in the bass range. The Bluesound PULSE 2i is a good option if you want a speaker that gets even louder with less compression at max volume.

While there aren't any built-in voice assistants, you can set up another Amazon Alexa device to control this speaker via the Bowers & Wilkins app.

The Bowers & Wilkins Music app is rather simple. There are bass and treble adjustments if you want to change the speaker's sound, and you can also use the app to access music streaming services like Deezer and Tidal. Also, there's a feature called Spaces that lets you play music from other Bowers & Wilkins devices within the same area. Check out a video of the app here.

Aside from its power port, there's a USB-C input on the rear of the speaker to service it. However, you can't use it to playback audio.

You can stream content from your mobile devices to the speaker via Bluetooth. It has a fantastic range, so your phone or tablet remains connected to the device, even if you're further away. If you're using an Android device, the relatively low latency means you won't notice any lip-synching issues while watching videos. However, there's a bit more of a delay over iOS devices. Some apps compensate for latency differently, so your real-world experience can vary.

You can wirelessly stream audio to the speaker over a Wi-Fi or Apple AirPlay connection. Thanks to its low latency over AirPlay, you won't notice a delay between the audio you hear and the visuals on screen when watching videos. Of course, some apps compensate for latency differently, so your real-world experience may vary slightly.